And it couldn't have happened at a worse time. At the very beginning of our class for reactive dogs, of course when Inara was flipping out, the clasp on her leash broke. Thank god I felt it pop and grabbed her collar before she could even think about moving. Let this be a lesson for me on asking Brad to order hardware he'd never tested out before. This was absolutely not a failure on Brad's behalf - both the leather and his hardware held up. The only failure was on the part of the company that made this clasp.

"Remember - every time your dog gets somewhere on a tight leash *a fairy dies and it's all your fault.* Think of the fairies." http://www.positivepetzine.com"

Ugh... that's my worst nightmare, too. I once bought a really expensive harness w/metal snap-together buckles, and in the middle of one of Micks "episodes" at the vet one of them came undone... I thought my heart was gonna stop.Luckily neither Mick nor the vet noticed it before I did...

pitbullmamaliz wrote:Noel, I have two other snaps like this but they're a little darker in color. Brad thinks they may be bronze vs. brass like this one. I'm sure this was just a fluke accident but I'm all paranoid now!

Don't be paranoid. I think the same thing. You have brass. It's much shinier than mine and missing some marks in the metal that mine have that are indicators of bronze casting.

If you can post a picture of the back, I can confirm that for you. Some of bronze ones have a W with an sefifs on the outer arms of the W. Those have withstood unmentionable abuse at my hands and at the hands of others that I have loaned my leashes to. That includes using two polypro leashes to pull a truck out of mud in a ditch. (Don't ask. Sometimes men are just too stupid.)

I was ordering mine from Weaver, but then decided to cut out the middle man & ordered them directly from an Italian manufacturer. My days of dating one of the sons of the Neapolitan Camorra has long reaching benefits.

Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men ~ General George S. Patton, Jr.

She taking all the stars down from her sky to hang them up someplace new, where there's better weather and the sky's a different blue. ~ Autumn Fields

My darker ones have the W on the back, this one does not. I think Brad ordered my current one from Weaver who got it from Italy. The person I got the bronze ones from won't tell me where they got them (they want me to keep ordering leashes through them). So I'm sending one of my bronze ones to Brad and he's probably going to put it on his leash he made for me.

"Remember - every time your dog gets somewhere on a tight leash *a fairy dies and it's all your fault.* Think of the fairies." http://www.positivepetzine.com"

Is it possible for you to use back up on Inara?Like, a back up collar with a back up leash attachment?

I know I made this suggestion on another board, but I'm not sure if you saw it or not.

We make attachment pieces with snaps on each end. One snap is attached to the swivel ring, and the other snap is attached to the back up collar (or harness).As I learned from Noel (I believe she was the one that told me), what tends to break most on snaps is the swivel head detaches from the swivel ring. You want a beefier swivel head that overlaps on the side to kind of lock it better in place to avoid it detaching from the swivel ring.Here's my pic example again of the swivel ring and head (though not the best snap example)

And it's not necessarily that those snaps are bad, it could have just been a fluke piece of hardware.Those, unfortunately, can happen. And it's not even the fact that brass isn't a strong enough metal (it should be PLENTY strong enough for our dogs), it's just a fluke piece.Weaver makes some of the best hardware, and even we've experienced a couple hardware failures.But, when making products, you learn to check your snaps and sometimes even oil springs in the trigger.This is why we say to ALWAYS use back up. I would NEVER feel comfortable trusting Ella (or ANY dog) out in public with just one collar and just one leash snap.If those things fail, then what? I'm not willing to risk that, personally.

I definitely will! I told Brad I prefer something very inconspicuous - I hate lots of junk on a dog which is part of the reason I never used a backup. I just like clean, simple lines. So I told him that I only need it big enough to give me about 30 extra seconds to grab Inara. This is the first time I've ever had a hardware failure so I'm not too concerned about, but I know that what happened could have been very very bad if I didn't have ninja-like reflexes.

I also told Brad that he didn't need to dye it or anything but he's of course dying it to match her oxblood collar and leash. He's good to me.

"Remember - every time your dog gets somewhere on a tight leash *a fairy dies and it's all your fault.* Think of the fairies." http://www.positivepetzine.com"